I was standing on a corner just waiting around,
the prices were up and the temperature was down.
It cost too much to freeze outside,
so now I sit by my fireside,
burning telephone books,
burning newspaper clippings,
Huckleberry Finn Hatch.
And it took me a woman,
late last night,
I was three-fourths tight,
she looked half right,
till she started peeling off all her onion gook,
took off her wig,
said,
how do I look?
I was half flying,
bare naked,
out the window.
Well,
sometimes I might get drunk,
I walk like a duck,
I smell like skunk,
said,
it don't hurt me,
none of it don't hurt my pride,
I got my little lady right by my side,
pretending she don't know me,
trying to hide it.
I was out there painting on the old woodshed,
can of black paint,
it fell on my head.
I went down to scrub and rub,
but I had to sit in back of the tub.
Cost a quarter,
half price.
Well,
the telephone rang,
it would not stop,
it was President Kennedy calling me up.
He said,
what do we need to make the country grow?
I thought for a moment, said, Bridget Bardo,
Anita Eckberg,
Sophia Loren,
country will
grow.
Well,
I got a woman five feet short,
she yells and hollers and screams and snorts,
tickles my nose,
pats me on the head,
rolls me over,
kicks me out of bed.
She's a man eater,
meat grinder,
bad loser too.
Well,
now there ain't no use in me working so hard,
I got a woman in a coffeehouse yard,
she works all week,
up to her neck,
writes me letters and chins me cheeks.
She's a humdinger,
hair raiser,
folk singer.